Opinion poll

The purpose of judging wine should be to determine which wine is the best, not which wine is the hardest to make. I do not think that kits should be separated simply because they are kits. It is important for winemakers to realize it if kits make as good of wine or better wine than made from scratch. You may want to judge them separately just because you want to split out more groups, but don't do it because they are easy or hard to make.

I make 70-80 gal a year from scratch and 15-20 gal from kits.

Ray

I think you should seperate, the major purpose of shows should be to help improve the breed. The feedback for the two classes is somewhat different.

Separate Bill.

There are different sets of skills involved.

clyde

-Cut for Size-

Are not most kit wines made from grapes and/or fruit with a recipe or guide included with them? Is this really any different from someone going to our website and picking a recipe from the many then buying the ingredients to make said wine? Should I be giving credit for the wine made, after all it was my recipe, or was it the style of the person that made it???

I have never made a kit wine BUT I have used others recipes, gave them my own ways and made my wine. Key word here is MY wine. If I am to be judged for my endeavors then I do not want to be judged for where I got my fruits but for my winemaking skills........ If I bet out a good or great kit was the kit bad or was my skills better than the kit? Judge them all the same, separate only fruits from grapes, categories in fruits/ reds/ whites etc but not fresh picked or my own fruits from those not my own. If judged separately from fresh to kits then my recipe from yours.....

My 2 cents.....

Ben & Linda McCune HoneyCreek Vineyard/Orchards

Hi Bill, my opinion is different from that of the venerable Jack Keller. I _would_ separate kit wines from fresh/frozen/dried. For the reason that the fruit product used in kits is "manufactured" in a certain way. The fruit product is altered. I recall Lum discussing this in one thread some years ago. There is a particular taste difference and you (from my understanding) cannot put a kit (or most kits) through ML that some grapes varieties are normally put through. I would offer dry white kit wine, sweet white kit wine, ditto dry and sweet for red kit wines. They are a different animal. I speak from the experience of having organized an international amateur wine competition (the memmories of which still exhast me). regards, Joanne

---snip

In all earnest their have to be a clear distinctive bar between all others and wine made from real grapes. There is no way you can or should mix them all. Gods created the grape to wine; the rest is our own inability to not be able to do the first. And there is nothing wrong with that but it should be classified as country wine, expensive sold juice wine (kit wines), etc etc. By mixing them both you will have forever clouded the little spheres that we always associate as "real" wine. Not for that this in any instance dictates the best in alcoholic fermentations but that it specifically brings us to a level at which to set the bar in the first place.

You are a good country winemaker Jack and have furthered the cause of general winemaking for many, but I hope you can see my point.

SG Brix

So many people complain about kits not being as good, or having a cooked taste or no legs or lacking in color or has a fake oak taste or...or.....or...... All of these would be considered flaws and the kits (if judged by competent judges) would be eliminated as possible winners. Apparently the afore mentioned problems do not exist or cannot be detected by judges. Judge them all together and let the best wine win.

How can a home winemaker with 8 or 10 vines, a 1/10 acre and three kids in college compete with a kit blended from several different years/ locations/ quality of harvest by a company with assets in the millions of $$

Wine kits represent blends optimized from perhaps dozens of grades over multiple vintages of grapes. Grapes grown by the wine maker limit his inputs into his finished product.

The two classes are produced with differing inputs, differing resource limitations by producers of entirely different classes.

I vote separate them.

Karl B

or...or.....or......

Many differing opinions, without a doubt. KB wants them separated because the kits are too good to compete against. Lum wants them separated because the aren't good enough. Valuable opinions, all, but I still say keep em together. Lum, could it be a regional phenomenon? Californians have access to grapes that are considerably fresher than the crap sold here.

I've enjoyed reading all the posts. As a relative new-comer to making country wines, I think it would be better to separate grape wines, kit wines, and country wines if you want to attract new people to the competitions. I have to admit I'd be more likely to enter a competition if the wines were separated. I don't know that I would enter a competition pitching my country fruit wine against a winery at this point in time. Maybe 10 years down the road, I would think differently. Darlene

Indeed, I think it is a regional issue. That's why I specifically said "here in S. California."

I responded early on in this debate that degree of difficulty should not separate wines so kit wines should not be separated out. After reading all the postes I change that argument. Now I say they should be separated.

Back 25 years ago kits were pretty auful. In no way could they compete with other wines. But they have gotten better and better over the years. And they will be getting better in the future. They are doing more and more steps for the winemaker, making it simpler to make wine. This is aplaudable.

But, we are talking about judging home made wine. There is a difference in judging comercial wines. With commercial wines you are judging the product partially as a service to the public so they will know the best wine to buy. With amatures, who do not sell, you are judging the product to see who is the best wine maker. Not the same thing.

If we are judging a home wine making competition, how many of the steps toward making wine should we allow a profesional to do rather than the home winemaker and still call it HIS wine? Pressing juice is not a big step but what about profesionally blending the juice or mixing in chemicals. What about the places that will make the wine for you and put your label on it? Is this going too far? What about doing all the steps except bottling so you could just buy an expensive wine and pour it you your own bottle and put your cork in it?

The competition should be judging the product of amature winemakers who make homemade wine, not products partically made by someone else before the winemaker gets it.

In conclusion. Kits and Juice wines should be judged separately as they are not totally made by the winemaker. Maybe they should not even be entered in competition for best of show! They were not totally made by the person who entered it.

Ray

SG Brix, thank you for your kind words, but you missed what I was saying. I said I have enetered competitions that judged separately:

CLASS A: GRAPE WINES (WHOLE, FRESH) (numerous sub-categories) CLASS B: FRUIT WINES (ANY FORM OF FRUIT OR BERRY) (red [dry and sweet], white [dry and sweet]) CLASS C: GRAPE CONCENTRATE WINES (NOT KITS) (numerous sub-categories) CLASS D: KIT WINES (JUICE OR CONCENTRATE) (numerous sub-categories)

They were not all judged together, as you inferref. The key word was "separately."

There was. That was my point. It was the fruit wines, I thought, that got screwed. There were 48 categories for grape wines (adding fresh, concentrates and kits), but only 4 for fruit. I didn't like it, but I chose to live with it and entered. I did okay.

Excuse me if I strenuously disagree with you, but I think fresh fruit wines are much more difficult to make well than fresh grape wines. Fresh grapes, properly processed and managed, will make their own wine. Not so with any other fruit. The winemaker has to intervene numerous ways and make numerous decisions, any one of which can be wrong and result in an unbalanced or even unpalatable wine.

Lots of people can make very good grape wines but cannot make very good fruit wines. I don't know anyone who makes very good fruit wines who doesn't also make very good grape wines. I'm thinking.... Nope--don't know anyone.

Have at it. I'm off to California for the next 3 1/2 weeks. I'll check your comments when I return.

Jack Keller, The Winemaking Home Page

Hi jack

Oh, SURE !! You light a fire and then run off to sunny California leaving a few of us snow bound old Far*s to defend your position !! ;o) hehehe Just kidding. Enjoy the trip !!

Frederick

snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com (sgbrix) wrote Gods created the grape to wine; the rest is our

What a lot of c***

Remember that mankind has been cultivating and breeding grapes for thousands of years. It's like letting a milk-cow loose in the prairies to fend for himself because it's 'natures way'. Or whatever gods creation. Dream on.

Rene.

---snip

What would make sense in the end is simply to have a general category sheet for any promoter of these events that subjects entries from wide variants I categories we all would agree to, so it would be the same coast to coast. To ever achieve this would only come under some for of national organization that the promoter then could belong to.

Well, this of course is a pun, referring to the Gods...

This we can debate to drink while we emptying both of our cellars and never come to any agreements. Hinting that real wines make themselves, oh Jack, aren't we slipping now...

While there I hope you give the little spheres a try,

SG Brix